Preview — Master of Falconhurst
by Kyle Onstott

Like Mandingo and Drum, Master of Falconhurst shatters the genteel image of the Old South and lays bare the savage truth about slavery and slave-breeding...about plantations like Falconhurst where the cash crop was black flesh, where human beings were stripped bare in the marketplace and sold like cattle.

In this great new bestseller, Kyle Onstott unfolds the turbulent dramLike Mandingo and Drum, Master of Falconhurst shatters the genteel image of the Old South and lays bare the savage truth about slavery and slave-breeding...about plantations like Falconhurst where the cash crop was black flesh, where human beings were stripped bare in the marketplace and sold like cattle.

In this great new bestseller, Kyle Onstott unfolds the turbulent drama of Falconhurst caught up in the violence of the Civil War. It also is the story of Drummage, the virile and handsome slave who rose to become not only ruler of Falconhurst, but master of the selfish, sensual woman who owned it....more

The Southern gothic carnage-ridden plantation porn crack that is the Falconhurst saga continues on the fast track to Crazytown in this last of the Onstott-penned installments. He appears to have up and died partway through #4 in the series, the prequel-ish Falconhurst Fancy, whereupon Fawcett, Lance Horner, and Ashley Carter kept milking the franchise for all it was worth to the tune of 12 more turgid tomes (not to mention Falconhurst-esque series like Blackoaks and Golden Stud by the same culprThe Southern gothic carnage-ridden plantation porn crack that is the Falconhurst saga continues on the fast track to Crazytown in this last of the Onstott-penned installments. He appears to have up and died partway through #4 in the series, the prequel-ish Falconhurst Fancy, whereupon Fawcett, Lance Horner, and Ashley Carter kept milking the franchise for all it was worth to the tune of 12 more turgid tomes (not to mention Falconhurst-esque series like Blackoaks and Golden Stud by the same culprits).

To which I can only say

Like the previous two books, Mandingo and Drum, this one is a hefty tome of tiny font where it seems like nothing happens for pages upon pages, but shucky darn I just can't stop reading. It's a mystery how Onstott manages to make chapters of talk about wenchin' and pleasurin' and fingerin' the human merch and various slave caste squabblin' and white folk dysfunction'ry so damn interesting, but he (and long-distance collaborator Lance Horner) pulls it off. An actual plot per se doesn't really turn up until nearly 200 pages in with the appearance of a mercenary fortune hunter and serial bigamist, but I found what came before that no less compulsively readable.

The book starts a few years after Drum ends. Falconhurst is still scarred from the bloodbath at the end of that book, but they're picking up the pieces the best they can and Hammond Maxwell still runs the plantation in that unique Maxwell way. Drummage (short for Drum Major, and the son of the last book's protagonist) is falsely accused and punished for knocking up a wench without Hammond's permission, but his stoic insistence he did nothing wrong (and being later proved right) earns him a promotion to house slave from the quarters. He grows very loyal to Masta Hammond, even though his new position gets him off the estate now and then and exposes him to ideas like abolition and education. Over time he struggles with how he's expected to feel (happy with slavery and all its perks) and how he actually feels ("Freeeedom!")

Once the war is over, he's psyched to be last man standing and able to make a grab for prestige and wealth in the Reconstruction South under the nominal protection of the Republican Union League, even if it means sacrificing his preferred tastes in female melanin content to make an advantageous marriage.

One thing you WON'T hear Drummage say.

But liberty comes at a high cost, and the Falconhurst rule that no one is safe from Onstott's bloody pen had me cringing for the rest of the book. I knew bad shit was going to go down, but when it did it was no less suspenseful and godawful tragic. (view spoiler)[The Klan will absolutely have its pound of flesh in a sadistic, gruesome way. (hide spoiler)] The final scene is excruciating, all the more so because vile shit like that went on unchecked and encouraged for a fucking century and still won't fully die. (See: James Byrd & Jasper, Texas)

I don't think there's a single character who is all good or all bad (well, except those Klan folks). They've all got their good points (yes, even Hammond Maxwell) and their loathsome or frustrating aspects. Sophie Maxwell, a pathetic middle-aged woman enslaved to her lusts and addicted to the N-word, has her vulnerable side. It's a gallery of grotesques, but weirdly endearing grotesques.

Onstott is a serial offender of one of my biggest peeves (view spoiler)[the off-page killing of main characters (hide spoiler)]. It's something I haven't forgiven Larry McMurtry for, but Onstott hasn't gotten onto my shit list, mainly because his exploitative creation is pure book crack. I know what I'm in for, but it's still always full of surprises.

I'm sure the rest of the series acquires a cheesy mass-produced quality over time, but this initial trilogy introduced quite a few characters that pop up in the out-of-chronology later books that I do not want to part with just yet. A later book, Heir To Falconhurst, apparently continues this particular story line about Drummage's genetic legacy to Falconhurst. That's one I'm really keen to read.

If you're up for all kinds of un-PC whatnot (seriously, one paragraph of dialogue had the N-word 12 times), this is a truly trashy treasure of vintage exploitative genre lit.

Another for the keeper shelf!["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>...more

I read this book many years ago. I don't remember the whole story; however, I remember it is about slavery in the U.S. I think this is a historical fiction because the book actually reflexes many of the atrocities that actually occurred during slavery. The characters are not real; however, slave owners, overseers, and slaves are a historical fact. Slaves had to work as house and field slaves under owners and overseers who saw them as property rather than human beings. Slaves had to live in poorI read this book many years ago. I don't remember the whole story; however, I remember it is about slavery in the U.S. I think this is a historical fiction because the book actually reflexes many of the atrocities that actually occurred during slavery. The characters are not real; however, slave owners, overseers, and slaves are a historical fact. Slaves had to work as house and field slaves under owners and overseers who saw them as property rather than human beings. Slaves had to live in poor conditions, off what ever was provided them. Further, unwanted sex and violence were wrongs that slaves had to endure.

Life on the plantation was and great. The author capitalized on human nature by exploiting our fascination with sex and violence. One thing I do remember is that, I enjoyed the book and read the other books in the series....more

I call it historical fiction because I don't have any place else to put it, but it's definitely not terribly historical. It's a story of slave times, but with lots of liberties taken with the human relationships. Or so I suspect at least. I read this back when I was reading anything I could get my hands on, and that meant books my sister was reading at the time. I don't remember it being all that compelling.

(Information from the article "The Master of Mandingo" by Rudy Maxa, which appeared in The Washington Post, July 13, 1975.)

The son of a midwestern general store owner, he moved to California with his widowed mother in the early 1900s and was a local breeder and judge in regional dog shows. He was an eccentric who was happy with a life of little work, ample cigarettes, and gin.

After collaborating w(Information from the article "The Master of Mandingo" by Rudy Maxa, which appeared in The Washington Post, July 13, 1975.)

The son of a midwestern general store owner, he moved to California with his widowed mother in the early 1900s and was a local breeder and judge in regional dog shows. He was an eccentric who was happy with a life of little work, ample cigarettes, and gin.

After collaborating with his adopted son on a book on dog breeding, he decided to write a book that would make him rich. Utilizing his son's anthropology research on West Africa, he handwrote Mandingo and his son served as editor. Denlinger's, a small Virginia publisher, released it and it became a national sensation, consumed by the public and derided by the critics.

After its paperback release by Fawcett, Onstott began his collaboration with Lance Horner, a Boston eccentric with a knack for recreating Onstott's style. The two men never met, but they collaborated on several books before Onstott's death, after which Horner continued the Falconhurst saga and penned other pulpy novels set in other eras. When Horner died in 1970, Fawcett signed prolific author Harry Whittington to continue writing Falconhurst tales under the name of Ashley Carter.

Although the Falconhurst series has sold near or over 15 million copies, it (and its authors) remain in the shadows of bestselling popular literature....more